What do you get when you win a bet against a Hoosier fan? The answer is chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies, if you make the bet with Hungry Bear. My Penn State buddy, Jeff, made a bet with her on the Penn State vs. Indiana football game last month. Since Jeff lives in New York City, they agreed to wager on homemade cookies, which are easily shippable. Despite a valiant effort by the Hoosiers, the Nittany Lions narrowly came out on top and Hungry Bear was relegated to baking cookies! One batch for Jeff and another batch for us to enjoy.

We don't have a tried and true oatmeal cookie recipe, so Hungry Bear used a recipe from The New Best Recipe cookbook, which has our favorite chocolate chip cookies recipe. She followed the recipe with one minor change for the first batch. Instead of using semisweet chips, she used Scharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate chunks for a more rustic look and a richer chocolate taste. The second batch contained half bittersweet chunks and half butter toffee chunks from chopped Hershey's SKOR candy bars.

On our last visit to the Scharffen Berger factory, we picked up a cookbook by the founders of Scharffen Berger, The Essence of Chocolate - Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate. The recipes in the book are arranged by chocolate intensity and are contributed by the founders and chefs including Michael Chiarello, Elizabeth Falkner, Thomas Keller and Jacques Pepin.

In addition to sweet and savory recipes, there's also a brief history of Scharffen Berger and the chocolate making process. A few recipes that immediately caught my eye were chocolate pudding cakes, chocolate chocolate cupcakes, cakey brownies, chocolate chunk cheesecake and chili-marinated flank steak (with cocoa powder).

The first dessert I made from the cookbook was baked hot chocolate contributed by Heidi Friedlander, which she developed for Moxie, a popular Cleveland restaurant. I chose this recipe because it was simple to make with only four ingredients and the description in the book made me crave it.

"Baked hot chocolate is almost like having three desserts in one -- the top layer has just a hint of crispness, the center has the texture of warm chocolate pudding, and the bottom layer is just a shade thicker than the thickest hot chocolate you can imagine."